Kyle Korver

2015-2016 opponent preview: Game 10, Wyoming Cowboys

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Okay, I am skipping the Mavs home game against Simpson College.  It’s just…you know…

Wyoming

2014-2015 final record:  25-10

2014-2015 home record: 15-2

2014-2015 Post Season:  Lost to Northern Iowa in NCAA tournament in “2nd Round”…I still think it’s the first round, but whatever.

Final 2014-2015 RPI:  72

Random Stat:  Wyoming record vs Northern Colorado/Denver/Air Force/Nevada – 4-1.  UNO record vs Northern Colorado/Denver/Air Force/Nevada – 3-2

Let me start out by saying…I like the Mavs in this game.  I like them a lot, even despite the fact that the Mavs are 0-5 when playing a division one opponent in the Mountain time zone since the transition.  Their only win since transition was against Johnson & Wales in 2012.  The Mavs are going to have 5 chances this season to get a win in the hour behind region (Colorado, Northern Colorado, Montana State, Wyoming, Denver).  I think Grand Canyon University might be in the Mountain Time Zone this time of year as well, I am not sure.  Bite me Arizona.

By the way, I learned something about myself here.  I somehow naturally always first type “Cowboys” as “Coyboys”.  It’s not a slam if you see that around here, just my natural incompetence.

Before we go any further, let’s talk about what the Cowboys lost.

Ricky Grabau, a 6’2″ guard that averaged 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, he shot 37% from three point range, made 61 threes in his senior season, and he was a 94% free throw shooter that got to the free throw line three times a game last year.

Derek Cooke, a 6’9″ forward that was an 8 and 6 guy and shot 72% from the field, and he also averaged a block and a steal per game in his senior season for the Cowboys.

Charles Hankerson, a 6’4″ wing player that averaged 7 points, 3 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in his last season at Wyoming.  He also made 42 threes last season.

Matt Sellers, a 6’10 post player that only got 10 minutes per game, and he missed the last 18 games of the season.  He gave the Cowboys length though when he was available, and he had a 16 point and 8 rebound performance against Florida A&M while going 8 of 9 from the floor that game.

Oh, and then there is this other guy named Larry Nance, Jr.  6’9″ and 230 pounds, and he was a first round draft pick to the Los Angeles Lakers.  Nance averaged 16 and 7 his senior season, and also dished out 2.5 assists per game.  He also shot 51% from the floor and 78% from the free throw line.

Mitch Kupchak is excited about Larry Nance as anyone.
Mitch Kupchak is excited about Larry Nance as anyone.

I know losing some quality players, and only having one senior does not necessarily mean that the Cowboys are going to be terrible by any means.  But losing the main pieces of your roster is never a great thing.  What were your thoughts when That 70s Show lost Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher?  Or when Scrubs lost every damn member of the cast as regular characters?  You immediately wrote off the show, right?  I am apparently one of the few people that stopped with 2 and a half Men when Charlie Sheen left the show, not that I was an avid watcher while he was on the show though.

It is very hard on mid-majors when they lose a NBA guy.  It is a lot to lose, and a lot to make up.  I know Creighton was no longer a mid-major when they lost Doug McDermott, but they essentially had a mid-major roster when they lost him; and they had a significant drop off.  The Bluejays struggled finding an identity after they lost Kyle Korver and lost to Nebraska in the NIT while Korver was draining 3s with the Sixers.  Wyoming is going to have 8 new players to mix into their lineup.  Even when Creighton lost Anthony Tolliver and Nate Funk, the team had a huge drop off in a weak year for the Missouri Valley.  The team was mixing Dane Watts with a couple junior college players and like 6 freshman.  Things were okay, but not great.

So if they lost some great talent, what do they have coming back?

Josh Adams is a 6’2″ senior guard that is the only returning Cowboy that averaged in double figures.  He averaged 12.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.6 apg, 1.4 spg, and shot 44% from the field last season.  His season high was 27 points against ranked Boise State.  He has averaged 6 points per game and 36% from the field in five career games against Summit League opponents (Denver & South Dakota).  A player like this could really prepare new guards like Tra-Deon Hollins and JT Gibson for the Summit League.

A guy with a fun name to say: Jason McManamen is a 6’5″ junior that played in about 17 minutes per game last season and averaged 3.7 in each contest while shooting 40% from the field.  Probably his best all around game last season was when he had 5 points and 7 rebounds in a win over Montana State.

The last returning Cowboy to get significant minutes in 2014-2015 was Alan Herndon, a 6’9″ post player who is going to be a sophomore.  He averaged 3 points per game and 2.2 rebounds per game in his freshman season.  He was able to help the Cowboys pick up a win against some team called the Denver Pioneers in his freshman season with a 9 point and 6 rebound performance, perhaps helping out my stance that you need a decent offensive post game to beat the Pioneers, along with quick defensive guards.  We’ll get to that another day, probably.

Aside from these returning players, the Cowboys were able to pick up 2 three star freshman (per Rivals) who could be immediate impacts for Wyoming.  Their recruiting class is highlighted by Austin Conway from Aurora, Colorado.  He was rated a three star recruit and also held an offer from Indiana.  He appears to have some great handles.

Considering the Mavericks have a good chunk of their roster returning, and the Cowboys are not returning much; I really like the Mavs chances here.  I have questioned if the Mavericks can keep up their high pace on the road in the Rocky Mountain region, especially with a roster that hasn’t been extremely deep when they’ve played there.  Wyoming is actually at a higher elevation than Denver.  It is something that visiting teams need to be prepared for.  Can the UNO Biomechanics building prepare the Mavs for this?  Can they donate that?  I feel like I have seen elevation masks in there, or they were all playing Batman in there.  I’m sure it’s most likely science related stuff though, that program is crazy good.

Toughness: From Rostampour to Thurman

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So I started this over two weeks ago, but I got sidetracked with a few things.  I work two jobs, my wife had a family reunion, and also I pumped the brakes on this because I have been listening to a bunch of motivational speech compilations on YouTube because I was motivating myself to be a bad ass for a promotion at my place of business…so I did not want this too come off too preachy…or douchey.  I tried to edit this a bit to make it not too douchey, but I don’t know, screw you, I’m dumb.

Have you read Mike Rostampour’s blog?  It’s actually really something special.  Maybe it is the timing that I have found an interest in it.  Due to some just personal situations, I have been listening to a bunch of motivational speeches on YouTube the last couple of weeks, just trying to figure this whole life thing out and whatnot.  I think Rostampour’s blog and story provides some teaching lessons for athletes, but it is quite possible that the most important stories are the ones that were never told.

Side note:  in the middle of writing this, by complete coincidence, I saw Tre’Shawn Thurman tweet about Mike Rostampour’s blog.

As someone who is not even 5’10”, I typically find myself pondering, what if I would have made it to 6 foot, would I of had a chance at playing basketball longer in the life?  The answer is simple…the answer is fucking no.  When I ask myself that question, the question is based on the assumption that you need to be tall to play basketball.

I worked pretty hard at basketball, before I understood what hard work really was too.  My friends and I played basketball every day in the summer, no matter how hot it got, we played ball; if it rained, we played too.  The only thing that ever stopped us was a blizzard.  The unfortunate thing was that my parents did not know how to get me involved into basketball leagues.  They thought me playing in the driveway was enough to prepare me.  It was not until I was 14 and I participated in my high school’s basketball camp that I actually figured things out.  When I first started out in the camp, I could not catch the ball from certain passes.  There were just so many things that I had never seen that I could have learned when I was younger if I would have gotten involved earlier.  Despite not seeing all of these situations on the court that I was seeing and learning for the first time, my strengths in basketball was my court vision, ball handling, and passing.  My shooting was not too bad either back at that time, but it was not great.  My weaknesses were things you would expect in a guy that had not played any real competitive games or actually been coached:  poor footwork, poor defense, lack of confidence, lack of toughness.

Toward the end of camp, we were playing in a pick up game, and this kid and I were getting into it, and he started talking smack and telling me that I sucked and that I would never be on the team.  Despite what the freshman team coaches told me, that I would make the team, I believed this kid’s negative talk.  I walked away from competitive basketball, I quit before I even had a real chance.  Essentially, like most people in this world, I was afraid of failure.  I told myself a little bullshit story in my head that I would work out by myself on drills and come out my sophomore year as a new man, but I didn’t do that…I didn’t grow from failure.  I still played pick up games in the gym.  My sophomore year I was in a game with a kid that was First Team All State, and he dismantled me.  For every 10 great plays he had, I had one great play.  I let it get to me.  I should have looked at it as a learning lesson to work harder, but at the time I did not see the point.

Everyone wants to be successful, but not many want to put in that work.  Many college students want to be successful, but not as much as they want to party; and I admit that I was in that camp for a while.  Many young people think that they can be professional partiers because of shows like Jersey Shore and Real World.  Unsuccessful people try to pick apart the people that are actually working toward success, and make fun of them for working and try to expose their potential failure.  I saw some people make fun of Rostampour for thinking he could be in the NBA someday.  I also know about 100 dudes that said Anthony Tolliver would never make the NBA.  Tolliver realized what skills he needed to make the NBA, I remember him saying he needed to add a consistent three point shot to his game to set himself apart from 6’8″ and 240lbs guys like him.  He went to Europe to play, made the NBA, got cut, played in the NBDL, made the NBA, got cut, went back to Europe, went back to the NBDL again, and finally found a niche with the Golden State Warriors.  How many people were making fun of him along the way and thought he should have just quit and be a really bad ass real estate agent?  Too many.

So, why bring this up?  Now, I know that I am not the only kid on the planet to go through this.  Why the answer to, would I have made it at 6 foot is no, is because toughness is what I lacked.  It does not matter if you are 5’3″ or 6’7″, if you do not try, if you quit, when you fail, then you are not going to get anywhere.  If you read the Rostampour blog, you see the struggle that it is to become a division one athlete.  Growing up, I thought most division one athletes were there because they were naturally gifted and everything worked out perfectly for them.  Nope.

It is not until I met my wife that I understood how much work went into being a division one athlete.  I learned of how many sacrifices she had to make to achieve her goals.  She never went to a party in high school, because she was too busy putting up threes in the gym, or getting in as many swings as she could get in the batting cages.  Her family did not go on many vacations because they put money into her softball equipment and travel expenses for her travel ball team.  She did not get to spend much time with her then boyfriend (which I secretly applaud) because of all the hard work she had to put into softball, basketball, and academics.  Every time I watch some movie that came out from 1998-2005 with my wife, it is basically the first time she has ever seen that movie.  She did not even have the time to watch movies at that stage in her life.  My wife is incredibly tough and competitive as well.  We both have Fitbits and we do challenges, if I ever have more steps than her she will go crazy and walk around our apartment until she is 500 steps ahead of me and then gives me a talk on how she has to get ahead of me because she did not become the athlete she became by underestimating her opponents.

How many high school athletes have you heard of that quit on their sport because their girlfriend, that eventually broke up with them anyway, did not want to go to college where they were getting D-1 offers to?  Would you rather tell people that you failed or that you quit?  Not many people want to put that much work into anything anymore.  It is too easy to give up.  It is much easier to pay someone to fix your car (and screw you over) than it is to learn to do it for yourself.  In the fitness field my wife tells many people the same thing that applies to this…that if it was easy, then everyone would be thin.

Recently, I tweeted to Rostampour saying that I thought he was EXACTLY what UNO needed when he showed up.  I wrote about that, I meant it, and I still mean it.  There was not much fight in a transitioning team in just their second year when he joined the team as a walk on.  When I first read the Omaha World Herald article about a post player transferring from St. Cloud State, I admit it, I had negative thoughts.  My first thought was: this guy just came to UNO just to say he was a D-1 guy.  I under estimated everything about Rostampour, and I know I am not the only one.  He became the tough guy of the boy band, added some spice, and built himself up to be the emotional leader.

When I first saw him live and up in person the year he redshirted, I saw him standing there and I just did not think much of it.  Then at every timeout, when his teammates would come to the bench, Rostampour was always the first to greet his team to the bench.  It was what he could contribute in games, he could have just sat there with an Ah Shucks look on his face the whole time, but he did not waste a second of that time he had to sit out.  Every time his teammates would get outworked for a rebound, you could see him look up to God and ask if he could transfer his toughness to that player somehow, or if the NCAA would just randomly change a rule and he could just go into the game at that moment.

Reading about how hard he worked in that redshirt year is inspiring.  There was no guarantee that he would eventually get a scholarship.  It had to be earned.  That is a problem with us as people.  We say that a player has received a scholarship offer.  We say that we have received our degree or our diploma.  No.  Players earn scholarship offers, and even walk on offers.  We earn college degrees.

Rostampour said (paraphrasing) he hoped he left some toughness for the team to learn from it and grow.  At this point, let me just say that I do think that guys like John Karhoff, Matt Hagerbaumer, Justin Simmons, CJ Carter, Alex Phillips, Jake White, Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and other Mavericks have had toughness.  But Rostampour toughness?  This is probably where you think I will complain that the team will never have that level of toughness and intensity ever again, but no…actually I think Rostampour said after the Mavs opening game against Central Arkansas that Jake White went into that game with an incredible amount of intensity and toughness…but here I am talking about that sophomore forward Tre’Shawn Thurman could be taking over that toughness role, if not his sophomore season, then definitely in his junior season.  I am not just talking about the physical toughness, I am mostly talking about mental toughness, probably one of the most important things you can have in life.

As an Omaha guy, I can tell you this about Thurman.  There were mixed emotions from people that pay attention to Omaha/Nebraska high school basketball.  This guy I met, who appeared to be a walking Nebraska High School Basketball Encyclopedia had nothing but great things to say about Thurman.  He literally did not say one negative thing about Thurman, and there were some current and former Nebraska high school athletes that he had some negative things to say about their games and mindsets.  He told me that Thurman as a freshman, is better than a bulk of what was on Creighton’s roster in 2014-2015.  That he could have gone to play just about anywhere, maybe not be in every team’s rotation right away, but could play on most teams.  Then there were others around here who said negative things.  Some said he was too inconsistent, that he was lazy and that is why he did not end up at a bigger college, that in some games in high school it just appeared that there were nights that he did not seem to care, and other things.  Go ahead and check out Husker Hoops Central on what they (mostly bitter Nebrasketball fans) said about Thurman and Benson’s Khyri Thomas (now at Creighton) when they were both in high school and locals talked about them as potential future Huskers (I think you may have to be a member to read about the recruiting, and I am not sure how long they keep it up).  It was not all entirely pleasant stuff.

I am not saying that on the 2015-2016 roster that Thurman is the only player that is capable of being Rostampour tough.  Devin Patterson certainly added toughness when he was brought onto the team, and he probably has his own brand of scary toughness.  Jake White brought it when he came to the program.  The general perception though is that Thurman was taken under Rostampour’s wing and referred to as a sponge, and wanted to learn absolutely everything that he possibly could.  As a Mav fan, I so hope that Thurman learned that toughness and hard work from Rostampour (and it certainly seems that he has).  When Thurman throws out tweets like “I don’t plan to be off anymore spring breaks if you get my drift,” I think he gets it.  It is refreshing to see a young guy that wants to learn and can learn from the older tough minded guys like Rostampour.  Per the Book of Basketball, the greatest book of all time, many younger players could not handle someone like Michael Jordan’s frame of mind and it just ruined a lot of guys.  Many of them had to go, but the ones that stayed with the Bulls were the ones who realized they needed to work their freaking asses off to play with Jordan.

My favorite Thurman memory in his young career is his game against Nevada.  There was a pretty big crowd given that it was Nevada, who has some prestige, and Omaha Benson’s Tyron Criswell played for the team, and it was Thurman’s first start at home and first home game since beating Marquette and giving Nebraska a show.  Jake White was still out with an injury, and no one knew what was going to happen to Thurman’s playing time once White got back, so I feel it was the perfect situation for Thurman to go off.  He played with a special bounce in his legs, he made shots that had fans see some things that they were not expecting to see, he basically owned that game.  I was thinking to myself…so we are going to have this kid for give or take 120ish more games?  Even as great as he was that day, he went 4 of 8 from the line, and that seemed to be more of what he focused on.  He tweeted after the game that he needed to work on his free throws.  He did not come out and say “I had 18 in a win, screw all y’all…I’m awesome.”

I think that toughness in general, for the most part, is a personality trait from people telling you that cannot do it for a number of years.  Look at Alex Gordon, in the environment of Lincoln his entire life, he was told how amazing he was as a Lincoln Southeast athlete and Husker baseball player.  Even as a player in the Royals farm system, George Brett and fans talked about how Gordon could turn out to be one of the greatest third basemen of all time.  When he got to the MLB, it was not working out, it took a few years for him to learn that he was not God’s Gift.  This is what I’ve heard from people in the know, but he didn’t want to take in hitting advice from older players and that his way of doing things always worked, so why add in anything else?  After a while of being a below average hitter, and all the fans finally turning on him telling him that he sucked constantly, he finally said he was tired of getting out all the time.  He was sent to Omaha to learn to be an outfielder, which at first seemed like his soul was taken from Shang Tsung at the end of Mortal Kombat.  Many players in Gordon’s situation would have just asked to have been traded, they would have gone to a team that was worse than the Royals, which would have been incredibly shitty at the time, and they would have lasted a few more years before becoming a permanent triple A third basemen.  Instead, he realized what he had to do to kick some ass, worked on everything that he could to be an outstanding outfielder and is regarded as one of the best outfielders in the big league today.  It was not until Gordon had a few years of failure that he had to learn to be a winner.

The same in a way goes for someone like LeBron James.  You may not think it, but it’s pretty true.  His whole life he was told how amazing he was, no one was going up to LeBron in high school and telling he sucked at basketball and winning that debate.  When he got to the NBA he lost and lost and lost at first and was told by many that Carmelo was actually a better team player and winner.  If you can find his first NBA game against the Sacramento Kings that the Cavs lost, they tried to interview him after the game…which might be the only time in the history of sports that an 18 year old was interviewed after his team lost…and you can tell that LeBron was not completely mentally tough yet.  You can tell he was completely nervous that the Cavs might have gone 0-82 that year and everyone would blame him.  Now LeBron loses a game and says “F it, we have to go work harder now.”  He had to listen to the LeBron versus Kobe debates and the LeBron versus Jordan debates forever, and still does.  Averaged 7 assists a game and was told that the Cavs were not winning because he was too selfish because he scored 31 a night.  LeBron thought he had it all finally figured out for a championship until the Boston Celtics pulled off a few trades to get Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to have three superstars that did not care about stats or what people had to say about them at that point in their careers.

Steph Curry was told his entire life that he was one of the best shooters that the world had seen, but when it came to being drafted many said he was too small and shooting was all he had.  Hell he averaged 6 assists and 2 steals a game as a rookie in the NBA and people still said he couldn’t pass or defend.  Brian Scalabrine told a story recently that as a new assistant he was telling the Warriors players that when he played with Kyle Korver that Korver would stay after practice and shoot 100 threes from everywhere behind the arch and would routinely hit 94 threes; and the Warriors players thought Scal was a loon, but then a week later after a practice he found Curry now doing the exact same thing as Korver.  Curry had the perfect shot, but now was being told that someone out there might be outworking him, so why not build on perfect?  Not having toughness would have been calling Scal an idiot and going home and watching Iron Man 2, Curry did the what I think is the exact opposite of that.

The greats, Jordan, Magic, and Bird all talk about people telling them they could not do it.  They attribute their failures as to the reasons they succeeded so well.  I think the only one that told Magic that he could not do it was Bird though.  Jordan apparently needed Pippen to slap him around a little bit and humble him, and Bird was just crazy.  Bird was the ultimate, he got off on people telling he could not do it and loved working at proving them wrong.  Read Larry Bird’s “Drive”, seriously, the man is crazy.

So you take Thurman’s love of basketball and athletic ability, throw in a spice of “this guy is lazy” and a mix of “he wouldn’t get these numbers at Creighton or Nebraska”, but you add in a few cups of Rostampour’s Screw Them Let’s Go Show Them Wrong attitude and you have yourself a recipe for something incredibly special.  Am I saying that you should scream at Thurman and tell him that he sucks in the middle of games?  I’m not sure, but probably not, I like craft beer too much to make great decisions…But maybe you should appreciate his hard work other than just his dunking ability.

 

 

 

How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: Part I

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Richard Creighton Fan walks into a bar

Okay, his name is actually Dick Creighton Fan*, but he walks into a bar about a half hour before the tip off of a men’s Creighton basketball game.  The first thing you need to know is that the bar belongs to him.  He will spend about 40 dollars on beer and food throughout the duration of this basketball game, and that is the most important 40 dollars that this bar will ever receive.  Dick grabs his seat at the end of the bar, right next to the tv, and so when you walk in you will have to walk by him and acknowledge his fan hood to the Creighton Bluejays.  For crying out loud, he has the new Bluejays logo on his shirt and the old logo on his hat, so you know he is freaking serious, super serious, he is Batman Taking Down the Joker serious.  It is a Saturday, so there are other basketball games on, and other sports on television, but none of those matter while Dick is ready to spend 40 bucks.  Dick is incapable of watching the game at home, no one is entirely sure of the reason, but does it really count as watching a sports match if you do not spend at least 20 bucks on beer?  If you went to a Creighton game with Dick, you would see how many trips he makes to the concession stand for a 8 dollar beer, it is a minimum of 3 times.

*Dick Creighton Fan is a pseudonym for a combination of every fair weathered Creighton fan you have ever met.  We all know a Dick Creighton Fan, they are all over Omaha, you have had several interactions with many of them, and you are even close friends with a few of them.  Most of this is based on an actual Dick Creighton Fan that I am good friends with.  Please do not take me poking fun at Creighton basketball as me not respecting the program, I have a good deal of respect for the actual program itself.

Fans of other teams begin to pile into the bar, none of them have a Creighton shirt on, but that does not matter to Dick, because you are the one who is a douche, and you need to respect what he brings to the world of sports, you came to his bar, he did not come to your bar.  A fan with a Nebraska Cornhuskers shirt walks in to watch a game, Dick tells him he is an idiot, Nebraska is stupid.  Dick loves the Huskers from late August to the beginning of January, but damn it, this is the winter, and Dick is 99% positive that the other sports at the University of Nebraska folded about 15 years ago.  A UNO hockey fan walks into the bar in hopes of catching the team’s away game, Dick does not care for UNO, you see in Dick’s mind, Creighton is in the Big East and has never been in a mid major.  Creighton has been a part of the big boys since the beginning of sports, so liking UNO is for the poor.  It is amazing how Creighton fans have already forgotten that they were actually in the Missouri Valley, and it can also be amazing that the ones who do remember that they played in the Valley forget that Wichita State and Northern Iowa were not always powerhouses.  An Iowa fan walks into the bar, what a loser, get creative, Creighton is all about innovation, Dick wants to ask the Iowa fan what it is like living in a trailer park.  A Kansas basketball fan walks into the bar, and this just enrages Dick.  Dick cannot handle it, this will cause Dick’s budget of 40 dollars at the bar go up to 50 dollars.  Who the hell does this Kansas fan think he is?  He is a punk, Kansas will not schedule Creighton, and the only logical reason is because Kansas is just afraid of Creighton, too scared to schedule them.

I walk into the bar right before tip off to watch the Creighton game with Dick.  Dick chastises me for showing up late, five minutes before the tip for a Creighton game is late to Dick.  The tip comes, Dick is so into it that he can only talk to me during commercials, and even then it is mostly about how the fifteen steps he has to take to the bathroom are completely stupid.  The referees make a legit call against the Bluejays and Dick calls the referees a bunch of (homophobic slurs), because Dick is super classy if you cannot tell.  An opposing player hits a wide open shot because the Bluejays are pretty terrible at defense, and that opposing player according to Dick is the biggest thug that ever existed in Dick’s mind.  That player belongs behind bars for hitting that shot.  A Creighton post player misses an uncontested layup and the opposing team grabs the rebound and runs down the court to score a transition basket.  “He was fouled!  These are the worst refs I have ever seen,” Dick screams out.  That player comes out of the game because he just a layup missed with no one or a ghost in the arena hit him on the arm, and another post player comes into the game.  The new post player gets the ball deep in the post, and with his awful footwork travels and turns over the ball.  “What kind of call is that?!  These refs are out to get us,” Dick objectively examines.  He claps hard for everything the Creighton starters do, as if they are the 5 greatest human beings on the face of the planet.  Essentially, Dick thinks of the Creighton starting 5 as the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.

So half time comes and Dick can finally talk to me, and thank God!  Dick graduated from Creighton, but is now working toward his Master’s degree at UNO, as that is becoming the typical route for Creighton grads that stay in Omaha.  So the UNO fan in me is curious, I ask Dick if and when the Bluejays and the Mavericks ever play, who will he root for since he is now a part of the UNO family (though I already know the answer).  Dick sets down his Bud Light (Dick ALWAYS has Bud Light, it is the classy man beer after all), he then looks at me in disapproval as if I had just admitted to him that I slept with his mother, AND ON MOTHER’S DAY!

“I will never root for that dog shit program,” he says in my direction with a soul less Terminator-like expression on his face.  Dick then goes on to tell me the history of the Creighton basketball program, which I am already familiar with, and points out reasons how the two will never ever be on the same playing field.  To bring them into the same arena is a disgrace to the fine culture and the existence of a basketball program with such excellence.

What is that you say?

So the transition for UNO athletics is over for all but the Spring sports at this point, and while many UNO fans are looking forward to the added respect of the glory that comes with being fully division one, they want to know if the UNO Mavericks will ever play the Creighton Bluejays in men’s basketball.

As an Omaha kid, I grew up really liking Creighton basketball.  A majority of the games were on KMTV and I watched every single one that I could, I had to mute the games due to the anger that would be inflicted on myself at the sound of Travis Justice’s voice, but I did watch most of the games.  Kyle Korver, Larry House, Nate Funk, Anthony Tolliver, those are names you can throw at any Omahan and they will have some sort of respect for them as athletes.  I grew up liking Nebraska as well, but it was a little more difficult to find their games on television.  They were so awful, they would never get picked up anywhere, but once in a while you might get lucky with one of the Big 12 games on KXVO.  I rooted for Nebraska, and I still do, but Creighton, I do not root for anymore really.

You know what achieved status I did not have as a child?  I was not a college student or graduate yet, and I had never been to a college party that involved Creighton students.  UNO and UNL students can get along on the basis of At Least You Do Not Go To Creighton bond, and I am pretty sure that a bulk of UNO students wanted to go to UNL at some point in their life, but for whatever reason they ended up at UNO.  I had friends in high school that ended up at Creighton (and UNL), and their parties always involved a bunch of dill holes.  Every UNO student has had this happen to them, they get to a party and mingle around a little bit, they start a conversation with a Creighton student and the CU student brings something up about campus, and you inform them that you do not go to Creighton.  They find out that you go to UNO and all of a sudden, the conversation is basically over.  How the hell did this peasant get into this royal gathering?  The royal court cannot be seen with the UNO jesters, so this person who seemed decent enough suddenly vanishes and relocates to a new group that is worthy of their commentary on life.

So after a number of run ins with Creighton students like this, the love of their athletics program died.  I cheered for them for a while, I watched their games on television, but I do not care the same way I did as a child.  Even with Doug McDermott, I never really cared if they won or lost, the Creighton students ruined it for me, and I am sure they have ruined it for many non-Creighton students all around the eastern part of the state of Nebraska.  If Creighton athletics wins at this point, good for them, if they lose, oh well, it does not affect my life in any way.

Not all Creighton students are bad though.  There are a few different types of Creighton students and fans that you should be made aware of.

The Entitled:

This is quite possibly the worst kind of Creighton student.  The Entitled Creighton Fan did not have a job in high school, their daddy has a good job, a great job that most of us are jealous of.  Daddy does not make The Entitled work too hard for anything.  Those “Why go to Creighton ads” should be followed with “because Daddy did not make you get a job in high school and you have no useful skills” if they need to get The Entitled to pick them over…okay The Entitled are going to go there no matter what if they are from Omaha.

The Entitled worked hard enough to be okay in high school, they got decent grades, stayed out of trouble, and did okay on the ACT.  Daddy makes enough money for The Entitled to get into Creighton with no serious issues.  Daddy pays the way for The Entitled to go to Creighton, so they will not have $100,000+ dollars of student loan debt by the end of college.  Daddy just wants to be sure that The Entitled can get into a fraternity so he has some students to study with (or cheat off of).  I know Creighton is supposed to be really hard to get into, but as Omahans we have all heard the stories of some entitled asshole getting through high school with a 2.2 GPA and a “26” on their ACT, but somehow they got into Creighton.  Daddy figured out a way.

Daddy will get The Entitled a job right away out of college no matter what, they just need a degree, and they need the Creighton name on the degree, not because it will help in the job market really, but for the glory of it.  The Entitled goes to every home game, because it is not like they need to work anyway, the Entitled goes to each and every game and pretends he goes to Duke, oh and if the Entitled does not get a free t-shirt at the game, it was a shitty game.  The Entitled will also be a total dick about a Creighton win over Nebraska, UNO, or any opponent.  The Entitled has not had a bunch of personal success as far as awards and accomplishments or what have you, so they have to ride the shit out of the athletics team that they started following when they were 18 years old.

The Entitled does not get disciplined by Daddy, just supported.  It is surprisingly easy to skate through life with your parents having the resources.  I know a Creighton grad, we went to high school together, let’s just say that Daddy and Mommy both have a ton of money.  The Entitled got some bad grades in their first semester at Creighton, and they printed off a bogus report card to give to their parents.  Somehow Mommy and Daddy found out, they got mad for five entire minutes, and The Entitled cried.  Mommy and Daddy felt bad for the tears, and for their actions of being the shittiest of parents in the world so Mommy and Daddy bought The Entitled a brand new $25,000 car.  Tough life, right?  The Entitled could have gone to college just about anywhere, they could have just gotten an online degree really, because if Mommy and Daddy can get them a $25,000 car for existing, they can get them a full time job just about anywhere in Omaha.  Creighton on the degree was just for Mommy and Daddy to have something to brag about.

Trust me when I say the words Creighton University do not really matter once you actually hit the job market.  The words may help them get a job straight out of college a few months faster, but after time the degree does not really matter to the employer.  What matters is what you did in your last job and how you did it.  The Entitled can use Creighton to get them into the door, but advancement is an entirely different story.

The West/East Coasting Douche:

So did you know that Creighton has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Hawaiian student populations in the US, on the mainland?  I found this out a few years ago, and it $urprised me.  There are a decent number of people that come from one of the coasts, it is usually the third school on their list, but they came to Omaha to visit the campus and “fell in love” with the campus.  They did not actually fall in love with the campus though, they fell in love with the Midwest feel of it being five years behind in terms of culture for where they are from.  They feel a little more cultured by coming here.  Downtown Omaha provides a bigger city feel, but with a small town splash mixed in for a little flavor, but not too much flavor.

The West/East Coasting Douche comes to Omaha, they like it, but they never really leave downtown for a few years.  Do not go to Dundee, that is where crime happens.  They come with the intention of coming to Omaha and getting the hell out after 4 years, which most of them are successful with.  This type of fan can be a bit of a prick.  To them, all of the locals are fools, you can never be as cool as someone from some a small town in California wine country after all.  They go to the sporting events and raise hell, because with a plan of getting out after 4 years, who cares what people around here think of them?

The West/East Coasting Douche more than likely comes from a similar economic class as The Entitled, but they have a different attitude and usually are not much of a factor after they graduate because they skip town immediately after graduation.  They go back home after Creighton life and just pay attention to the pro sports in the end.  They typically do not educate themselves on Creighton’s opponents, because it is just about a Creighton win, which is respectable in a way, but they do not care if it is Georgetown that Creighton beats of it is Arkansas State.  All Creighton wins are cool to these people, which is also respectable in a way, but when they talk up beating Arkansas State like it was the game of the century, you kind of want to smack them around a little bit.

So I grew up liking Creighton, right?  I have a Creighton Bluejays rain jacket, if I could find a Huskers rain jacket or a Mavericks rain jacket that fit as comfortably in the rain when it is warmer out, I would replace it.  Anyway, my wife and I went to Portland for her 10 year high school reunion.  Have you ever been to the Pacific Northwest?  It rains a lot, so I brought the rain jacket.  I worked out of my company’s Portland office for a few days, and my wife met me in downtown Portland after work for her to go shopping for a dress for the reunion, and to torture me with boredom.  Anyway, while sitting there in pain for an hour or two waiting for her to try on dresses, a guy comes up to me and asks me about my Creighton jacket.  He is clearly pumped to find a fellow Creighton buddy so far away from Creighton, he treats me like we are about to be best friends, but then he asks me what year I graduated from Creighton.  I disappoint him with telling him that I went to UNO, then his head drops and the conversation just turns into one word exchanges.

I did not live up to par with him, I was a local Nebraskan, not a fellow West/East Coasting Douche.  The West/East Coasting Douche is never overly mean or anything (other than at sporting events), they just simply do not care about the locals.  They are in college to get their education, which is important and honorable, the sports thing is cool to them, but not typically hugely important.  These are usually the students that you will look down into the student section and see them sitting down, drinking a beer, and playing games on their phones.  So the people that want to make you shout WHY DID YOU EVEN COME TO THIS GAME!?  They usually leave with about 10 minutes to go in the game though, no matter the score, because who really cares?  You cannot buy a beer at that point in the game, so that is when it stops being fun to the coaster.

The Attitude:

With similar backgrounds to The Entitled and The West/East Coasting Douche, The Attitude is just a prick for the sake of being a prick.  The Attitude cares about Creighton athletics winning, because they need to be better than you, and apparently their sports team beating your sports team is what confirms that.  Maybe the fundamental difference between The Attitude and The Entitled is that Daddy made The Attitude get a job in high school, maybe even one in college, just to teach The Attitude to please for the love of God just do not have an attitude.  The Attitude gets to Creighton though, and they have to deal with the Entitled and the West/East Coast Doucher, they need to compete for spoiled bitch hood.

Usually The Attitude is nothing physically great.  Their life has been spent with Daddy trying to give them life lessons by making them work and try to be a little hard on them to get them to grow up, but damn it, they went to a high school where all the kids got BMWs and The Attitude was stuck with a newer, but still slightly used, Honda Accord.  Why is life so freaking unfair?!?!  So The Attitude has let themselves go just a little bit to test Daddy’s love.

This same trip I spoke of for going to Portland for my wife’s 10 year reunion, before leaving Omaha we were sitting in the airport, and of freaking course I accidentally put my headphones in my checked baggage.  We were sitting next to The Attitude and a future Creighton student who could possibly turn into the West/East Coast Douche, but she seemed like a decent person really.  The Attitude knew everything there was to know about life, she had all of the right answers to everything.  She tried to teach the future Creighton student what real student life was going to be like.  The Attitude made fun of the locals and taught real import stuff like what professors you should take based on how hot they were or how easy they were as a teacher.  Do not even try to challenge The Attitude into adulthood, you will get nowhere.  The Attitude then talked about which fraternity had the hotter boys and where they hung out, who had the better parties, and which one you would definitely get lucky at…The Attitude was about 30 pounds over weight and wore glasses that made it look like she was trying to crack a safe, there was nothing really attractive about her on the outside or the inside, and you could tell that she never really had anyone in her life tell her “you know, you are not really God’s gift to man, you should try to nicen up just a little bit.”

The entire time she talked, my wife and I just had our heads down wishing it would just stop.  We both wanted to tell her off, but we both knew and probably just hoped that five years down the road she would grow up and look back at everything and realize her stupidity.

The Attitude is usually the one at Creighton games who do not know what a foul or a travel is.  How could Creighton make infractions in the game, they are too smart to not know the rules?   The Attitude is typically in college for the ride and to say that they went to college, not to actually get anything out of it.

The Senseless:

No one knows how The Senseless got into college, and in fairness they are at every college.  I am pretty sure they are just created like cartoon characters and never truly age.  They live the Van Wilder experience and have been a Senior a semester away from graduating for the last couple of years.

The Senseless loves Nebraska football probably more than anything, but hates Nebraska in everything else, especially basketball.  I believe the term for that is JaySker.  My friends and I think there are couple different types of JaySkers.  The acceptable ones who love the Bluejays, but also love the Huskers as well.  They support both programs equally as they the two biggest and local products, and they probably have ties to both of them.  These JaySkers can also love the Mavericks, even the Lopers, and whatever the hell else is out there in Nebraska.  Then there is the other type of JaySker, the ones who love Nebraska football as if it is their first born child, but hate Nebraska in everything else and just support the hell out of Creighton.  These people make up The Senseless.

The PA in the CenturyLink Center may announce the Nebraska basketball score from time to time, and The Senseless will boo the crap out of that.  They hate Tim Miles so damn much, probably because he is a coach with a personality, and he could threaten the ideal that Creighton has a dominating advantage over a Big 10 school on the court and in recruiting.  Tim Miles and Nebraska will beat Creighton someday, and it will be the worst day in the life of The Senseless.

The Senseless supports Creighton athletics no matter what, which is good for them, but to them the athletes walk on water.  The stories of students getting into Creighton with bad grades is impossible for them to understand.  To The Senseless ALL Creighton students got a 4.0 or better in high school and a perfect score on the ACT or SAT.

The Good Ole Folks:

The Good Ole Folks are good people.  They go to Creighton, because they want the quality education, and they want the challenge that is supposed to come along with Creighton.  They do not get to every Creighton event, just the ones they have time for.  These folks cheer on the Bluejays because it is their school, you can respect these people, you want to hang out with these people.

The Folks usually have taken out a decent number of student loans to take on the Creighton challenge.  They hear The Attitude talk about taking classes with the easy professors and they thank them for letting them know what classes to not take.  The Folks may have a father that works three jobs just to help their child go to school, and I really do not think there is anything more respectable than that.  You may meet the Folks at a party and they can carry a conversation with you most of the time, unless some peer pressures come from their Creighton associates, but later in life they will hold a small amount of regret for that.

The Folks can typically get along with anyone who is a good decent person, as they are a good decent person themselves.  They realize that sports are just an escape vehicle for most people.  Something to get away from the normal pressures and stresses of life.  The Folks do not need to wish the deaths of college kids of opposing schools, in order to take some form of comfort in a Creighton loss.  The Folks are at every school, and they are needed in to keep the rest of fans fair and balanced.

 

Where are you going with this?

So that is the main core of Creighton fans/students, when you get to know them, you hate them.  They have taken something that you could once enjoy and they make you borderline hate the athletic program.   Dick Creighton Fan, he takes on the characteristics of all the main core except for The Folks. but Dick is going to be essential for the success of the UNO men’s basketball team.

What does profiling Creighton athletics fans into something as if they are marketing profiles have to do with scheduling Creighton and UNO men’s basketball?  Just wait, I will explain that…

To be continued…

My undeniable man crush on Rylan Murry

acroth86 College Basketball , , ,

Don’t make it weird…I just hope to not get a restraining order…

Growing up in Omaha, I grew up on Creighton basketball, but the love for Creighton has died…don’t worry I’m going to get to the reasons on this another day.  Let it be known, I still respect the Creighton basketball program itself…

Anyway, Kyle Korver was my favorite.  Something about players from Iowa always got me.  Both of my parents are Iowa born, so maybe it’s just something I’m genetically predisposed to.  Honestly, I hope that’s the only thing I’ve inherited through Iowan genes.  Korver wasn’t just a shooter with great hair, he was a leader, and he was clutch.  He wasn’t someone to just hang out behind the arch and wait for the pass to come to him, he moved (and still moves) so well without the ball.  In 2003, the Bluejays won the Missouri Valley Conference championship game behind Korver who had 12 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists.  So yeah, he wasn’t just a shooter.

Sure there was Terrell Taylor and Rodney Buford as big names for the Bluejays in the late 90s and early 2000s, but no one stuck out like Korver.  He got the ball rolling for the Bluejays to get national attention. His ridiculously good shooting got the Jays on the ESPN highlight reels, posters still hang of him in the CenturyLink Center, an arena he never even played in.  His Creighton team his junior year, literally had no seniors, they won the Missouri Valley, and Korver (and Taylor) led the Bluejays to a double overtime win over freaking Florida.

I met Kyle Korver once.  My wife and I moved to Ogden, Utah and shortly after we heard about a dodgeball tournament put on by former Jazz players Deron Williams, Korver, Wesley Matthews, and someone else I do not recall.  My wife and I showed up just in time for the autograph line.  We got in line, and I was like, we’re actually going to get to meet Kyle Korver?  I thought we were just going to watch them play dodgeball, not actually meet these guys.  So we’re in line for like 20-30 minutes.  I see Korver’s wife, his brother Klayton, who people joke looks like Tom Brady, and also I think I was the only one in the entire place who knew Klayton Korver was a former Drake Bulldog.  Anyway, my wife and I pass Wesley Matthews and Deron Williams, who cares about them?  Korver is last, he sees my Creighton shirt, and I am speechless.  It’s Kyle freaking Korver.  He tries to make small talk, but I’m too weird.  I just stand there like Garth Algar meeting Alice Cooper.  After a minute, Korver is pretty weirded out I think and just pulls out a photograph of himself and autographs it.  My wife asks if we could get a picture, that picture doesn’t happen without my wife there, if she wasn’t there I probably would’ve just walked off in shock.  I have that autographed photo framed, with the dodgeball bracelet to show off that I was there.  I think my wife is worried sometimes about how much I like Kyle Korver.  Like when the Hawks are on, which is basically never, and she tries to talk to me and I can barely hold a conversation.  Kyle Korver is on tv, he’s going to do something, everyone shut up.

Anyway, my wife and I move back from Utah after a while, we moved back in March.  I’m checking up on the Mavericks recruiting, there was very little out there on what they were doing.  Many of the recruiting sites still didn’t recognize them as a division one team yet.  At first, I thought maybe Mitchell Farr might turn out to be a good player, but he leaves after his freshman year.  I don’t remember fully what all the stats were, but I remember looking at his stats and compared what he did against UNO’s D-1 opponents versus non-D-1 opponents.  He shot like 25% from the floor against D-1 opponents and even worse from behind the arch.  CJ Carter had pretty decent stats as a freshman, so I was feeling alright about him, but still overall I wasn’t too sure what the Mavericks were doing for recruiting.  I was worried that they may never get anyone good, and especially no one decent with some height.  I think I was living in fear that in 2015-2016 the Mavs center would be 6’2″.  They’d be one hella good Intramurals team.

There wasn’t much out there on their first full recruiting class as far as highlight reels or news articles.  When one of my friends asked what I thought the Mavericks would do, if they would ever be good, I was like – well hopefully we can pick up some transfers from Missouri Valley schools, bigger conferences, and maybe we’ll start getting all those deadly three point shooters from Iowa that not a lot of people recruit too heavily.  They’ll be okay in a few years I think.

I actually don’t pay that much attention to recruiting sites, I think they’re pretty dumb.  Seems most of it is based on athleticism and, per Tom Osborne, who these players’ parents can get to write articles about them.  Five stars, 3 stars, who gives a crap?  Was Doug McDermott really a 3 star athlete?  How about Damien Lillard, was he only worth 2 stars?  Blake Griffin was the 6th rated power forward coming out of high school.  I think the top 10 players are pretty accurate, but then after that it becomes a bit of a guessing game.  I was watching an old Big East game a few years ago between Syracuse and Georgetown, everyone on the court was a 4 or 5 star athlete and the game was nothing but banked threes, missed dunks, and turnovers.  Great game.

So in August of 2012, I’m checking the Omaha World Herald and there is an article on UNO’s newest basketball recruit named Rylan Murry.  The article lists him as a 6’8″ stretch four from some place called West Branch, Iowa…which I assume is a made up place.  He is compared to Alex Welhouse, who at the time was believed to be UNO’s best returning player.  I watch his highlight reels, yeah he can totally hit the 3.  I think to myself is he UNO’s version of Korver, is this the stretch 4 from small town Iowa I was thinking UNO could finally get some day, someone to bring attention to UNO?  I’ve learned not to compare players like that.  Everyone in Omaha wanted to compare Kaleb Korver to his older brother, they weren’t the same player, not even the same position, but everyone hoped for Kyle 2.0.  I went to the UNO-UMKC game in Kansas City in 2013 when the youngest Korver, Kirk, played for UMKC.  Kirk made a free throw and an Omaha fan shouts out “you’re still not as good as your brother.”  Kirk Korver’s facial expression changed instantly, you could tell he was negatively affected by it, he wanted to jack up threes after that to show that fan wrong, but he couldn’t do it.

I don’t want to claim that Rylan Murry will be the UNO Korver, but I admit I was hopeful for it at first.  Let me just throw this out there:

Kyle Korver’s first 9 games played at Creighton-

52 points (5.8 ppg), 21 rebounds, 9 assists, 4 steals, 38% from the field, 11 threes, 31% on threes

Rylan Murry’s first 9 games played at UNO-

65 points (7.2 ppg), 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks, 54% from the field, 11 threes, 46% on threes

So let’s just say there is a chance to build on the resume….Also in a stats class at UNO I learned how to compare athletes at different levels and see what their comparable worth was.  I thought to myself, I’d never need that to work in Marketing, no sense in keeping this skill in my head.

Anyway, I started looking at Murry’s highlight reels, and I’m thinking this guy can play, this could be UNO’s first legitimate D-1 recruit, but what does that mean?  Keep in mind, at this time, I didn’t know if we should classify CJ Carter as a D-1 recruit because he didn’t have any other D-1 offers (though I’ve heard many rumors that he had an offer to Wichita State), Marcus Tyus had yet to play a game and didn’t have any other D-1 offers reported on the interwebs, Justin Simmons and Alex Phillips had also yet to play a game, but they were only going to be at UNO for 2 seasons.  Murry picked UNO over Central Michigan and South Dakota, so it was like, someone actually picked UNO over someone else.  It was a new feeling for sure.

Then it turns out he is selected All-State in Iowa.  I think there is more merit being all-state in Iowa in basketball as compared to Nebraska.  It’s a bigger talent pool in Iowa for basketball.  Not saying that guys like Josh Dotzler, Antoine Young, Akoy Agau, Tre’Shawn Thurman, or Khyri Thomas would never be able to be All State in Iowa, they certainly would be.  Historically Iowa’s high school talent pool is filled with:  Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, Doug McDermott, Harrison Barnes, Kyle Korver, Ricky Davis, Fred Hoiberg, and Raef LaFrentz.  Nebraska’s is basically just Erick Strickl and Bob Boozer.  Boozer, Omaha named a street after Bob Boozer, the most worthless street in the entire city.  My wife was a D-1 softball player at Belmont, she is from the Pacific Northwest, basically a mecca for softball recruiting.  Some of the girls on Belmont’s roster were All State in softball in Tennessee and she claimed that those girls wouldn’t have been on the JV team at her high school.  I don’t really know where I was going with this, I think I just wanted to brag about my wife.  Something about states having bigger talent pools…

At this point, I started following all of UNO’s potential recruits on twitter to see if they would say anything about where they would go to college.  I quickly learned to not do that.  Aside from it being slightly creepy, do you you know what high school dudes talk about?  They talk about stuff that a guy in his mid-20s doesn’t care about.  Math is stupid, girls don’t get you, we get that you go to the gym, and yes Kevin Durant is freaking sweet but thanks for filling us in.  Rylan Murry is tweeting sarcastic insults at people he knows, how good at golf he is, pokemon is cool (haha), constant video gaming, and claiming he is a hipster.  A hipster basketball player?  Is this the world’s first?  I don’t know how true of a hipster you can be AND be a division one athlete, but it kind of makes sense for Murry I suppose.  When he’s on the court the other Mavs are playing to the rhythm of Eminem’s “The Way I am,” and Murry is asking if they can turn it to “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver, or any one of the 25 different artists that have done that song.  Is The Way I am still cool?  I’m not into rap.  

Part of me is surprised that Murry didn’t try and stay in Seattle when the Mavs played there.  The Pacific Northwest is a hipster’s paradise.  My work has an office in downtown Portland, and I was walking to work while I was there and I walked by a camp gear shop in which ALL the camp gear was designed in plaid.  If that’s not hipster, I’m not sure if I have the correct definition of hipster.  I have hipster friends, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to run into Murry at Legend’s comic book/coffee shop near UNO’s campus trading pokemon cards and trying to get in on the next Dungeons and Dragons contest.  This may sound like I’m making fun of Rylan Murry, but I’m not, I think it’s bad ass.

When the 2013-2014 season started, I see that Murry wasn’t going to be playing.  Okay, makes sense, lets have him for three years of eligibility instead of just two years, I was thinking.  We’ve got Karhoff, Hagerbaumer, Rostampour, and Krych to weather this storm of ineligibility.  I’d watch his shots in warm ups and could see he could clearly shoot, handle the ball a little even.  We’ll have that 6’7″ kid from Iowa next year who can shoot the three, that should help.

At the start of the 2014-2015 season, I see Rylan Murry sitting toward the end of the bench.  I felt like I was shot down, like, oh maybe he is a bust.  I’m wrong, what the hell do I know about anything in this crazy world…I went all hipster.  I’ve realized it too, I’ve paid so much attention to Rylan Murry that I’ve become the world’s worst uncle.  Murry finally gets on the court and my friend instantly says, “who is this kid, he looks goofy.”  Yeah, he kind of sticks out, like maybe he’s the team’s accountant, cashier, or they picked him up from the mail room.  I become defensive, like I am actually this kid’s relative, just watch man, he’ll do something cool, like that little Asian guy sitting in the corner of the mafia brawl.  That’s a Simpsons reference.  When Tre’Shawn Thurman committed to UNO, I instantly wondered if he and Rylan Murry would get along, that’s how odd I’ve become.

By the way, have you ever seen that old SNL sketch with Martin Lawrence as the 12th man for the New Jersey Nets?  I think I’m one of six people that have seen it and remember it.  He’s at the end of the bench and he’s talking about how he never gets in, he has a portable television that he watches other games on, eats a bucket of fried chicken, and tries to talk to the new 11th man on how to deal with the end of the bench.  I was hoping that’s not what Murry would become, like we’d look and see him in his Rivers Cuomo glasses trying to trade pokemon cards, bragging about how he just won some new pogs with his freaking sweet slammer, playing a game on his Nintendo DS, and eating a burrito.  Actually when I think about it, being the 12th man doesn’t sound all that bad.

Murry picks up a few fouls, hey man, you’re making me look like a fool.  A few plays later, he gets the ball and just drains a three.   My friend begins to pay attention.  Time goes buy, and we’re also sitting with this guy who is huge into Nebraska high school basketball and he’s talking about how there are some kids from Nebraska that should be on UNO instead of “number eleven.”  About ten seconds later, Murry knocks down another three.  Was he listening?  Let’s just keep talking crap about Rylan Murry, he’ll hit like five threes a game.

So what do we have here?  A 6’7″ guy that shoot threes, not every team has that, but they exist.  We’ll just stuff him in the corner, and a driving Carter or Patterson will kick it out to him for an open three.  That’s worth six points a game.  I was kind of thinking that’s what Murry was going to be as a freshman, just someone who was going to take 95% of his shots as threes, kind of a bigger version of Kaleb Korver.  Then I’m watching Omaha play Nebraska, and Murry is about 15 feet away from the basket and recognizes he has space to the lane, and puts the ball to the court and gets a running floater over Shavon Shields (if memory serves me correctly).  Wait, what did he just do?  Then against Nevada, he puts the ball to the floor a few times and goes to the basket, makes some unexpected passes.  Can this guy do a little bit of everything offensively?  Do we really have two 6’7″ freshmen that can shoot the three and drive to the basket?  More offensive moves will come (for him, Thurman, Meyer, and Newsome), more rebounding will come, and the threes will continue.  He has claimed to be “cash” from three.  Is that new lingo?  Is “The Cashier” an appropriate nick name?

Hoping that Rylan Murry is going to be the UNO Korver, the Iowan shooter that will take us to the next level may be much, and I certainly don’t want to put that pressure on a person.  I do hope he continues to work, make big time threes, and has a successful career as a UNO Maverick.  Along with the Thurman, Meyer, and Newsome, he’s a smart player.  None of them are the guys you see on television missing dunks, dribbling the ball out of bounds off their knee, they’ll all be playing within themselves and not trying to do too freaking much to look cool.